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The Middle East market is primed for the upcoming wave of digital growth. Key digital growth levers already in place, such as a growing base of mobile subscriber, increasing data connectivity, as well as young and a tech savvy millennial population hungry for digital content.

In order to make the most of emerging opportunities, both operators as well as content providers are in need of innovative service and offering that are able to cater fully to the evolving customer needs and service dynamics.

A Digital VAS business aggregation player provides a critical service and platform to operators by enabling them to innovate and transform their digital growth journey through a bouquet of mobile based entertainment and infotainment services, calibrated carefully to the needs and requirements of the end user.

In Digital VAS business aggregation model, end-consumers get seamless & personalized experience with best fit and recommended digital content which is completely controlled, technology-proof and driven, based on defined KPI's and SLA's

So, why do operators need VAS Business Aggregation Services in the first place?Problem of plenty: Today, we are creating as much information in two days as we did from the dawn of civilization. In every minute, 300 hours of video are uploaded, 400 hours of new videos are shared, 3,567,850 messages are sent, 86,805 hours of premium video content is streamed (Netflix).

So there is a problem of plenty! How do we make sure that the right content reaches the right audience? With an aggregator, telco can enable access of best recommended services to the right customer by providing digital products and services, be it entertainment, infotainment, utility, kids special, etc.

Faster go to markets: A strong go-to-market strategy builds customer advocacy which helps to improve customer experience. Key to this strategy is to identify attractive target segments, and catering to this segment with better value proposition than the competition. An aggregator's key objective is to do due diligence of current live service and figure out gaps in service/ content currently live with telcos. An Aggregator ensures that the services are launched with minimum timelines. They have readily available API which is provided to new Partner to integrate and launch with bare minimum effort to go live.

Syncing end user requirements with partner offerings: Once end-user has acquired an aggregator, he keeps track on each activity of on boarded user to ensure that the content offered for consumption is relevant and best fits to specific user. Content experiences have to be shaped around the customer. This means segmenting and profiling the customer base - i.e. understanding which user did what, when, where and most importantly why, to serve them better.

CAPEX Rationalization: The aim is to shift costs towards the end customer with the aim of creating more value proposition for the company. Other costs, such as infrastructure and H/W costs should be rationalized. EBITDA is one of the critical KPI for telcos where they don't have space to do experiments with currently live business and invest more in BAU, aggregators invests in infra and H/w setup. Most of Digital Business aggregators propose commercial that suits various expectation and defined budgets.

Bringing in best in class practices: Since aggregators hold in-depth domain knowledge and carry extensive experience of various markets and clients, they bring in their best practices and experiences while working with operators.

By Kamal Sharma Regional Head - Business Development Mobile Lifestyle Solutions Mahindra Comviva